Fab City Plymouth
Fab City Plymouth
In 2019 Plymouth successfully applied to join the global Fab City network. A network of 38 cities worldwide committed to producing nearly everything they consume by 2054.
Plymouth is the first UK city to do so.
Fab City Plymouth is an open forum of interested parties, stakeholders, communities and citizens. and represents the next step in working to bring this commitment into reality.
Over the next year we will aim to run a series of forum meetings to support people to engage with and shape what Fab City Plymouth is what it can do for the city, what it can for everyone who lives and works in the city and what Plymouth can do for the world as we urgently seek to our escalating crisis of environmental and climate breakdown.
Fab City Plymouth
For now, Fab City Plymouth is a badge, a commitment and an ambitious target. How we will get there and what we will do is up to you, up to us and up to everyone who shares our commitment and seeks to act and engage. Whether you are a citizen or council officer, a corporation or a community, a student or social enterprise, cultural organization or creative business, a healthcare or housing provider; whether you’re working in food, farming, craft, making, digital or design, Fab City is for everyone, and we invite you to get involved.
Fab City is an ambitious commitment but one Plymouth is well placed to meet. We have a high-tech marine and manufacturing base, a pioneering council, a vibrate digital and creative sector, three universities, community energy and community businesses, we have two national parks and a green and blue bio-region that is the envy of the world. As a city we are small enough to manage and big enough to matter. Plymouth is a great place to get things done.
As a city we are small enough to manage and big enough to matter. Plymouth is a great place to get things done.
For updates on meetings, action and news, and to get involved, join our mailing list.
The Challenge
By 2054, 70% of us will live in cities. This rapid urbanisation presents a grand challenge as well as a system-changing opportunity.
In 2014, the then mayor of Barcelona challenged cities to produce everything they consume by 2054 and the Fab City Initiative was born. Fab City now comprises a network of 38 cities who have pledged to address this challenge by developing locally productive, globally connected cities and citizens.
Image credit: Jay Stone
Image credit: Jay Stone
The Manifesto
The Fab City concept revolves around a core belief that sustainability and livability depend on collective action and co-designed solutions which benefit the planet and the future of humanity.
In 2014, the then mayor of Barcelona challenged cities to produce everything they consume by 2054 and the Fab City Initiative was born. Fab City now comprises a network of 38 cities who have pledged to address this challenge by developing locally productive, globally connected cities and citizens.
The Approach
Fab City originally grew out of the global community of FabLabs, which now number over 1,000 facilities in around 80 countries worldwide.
The first FabLab was created in 2001, growing over time into a worldwide Fab Lab Network movement in which the number of labs has doubled approximately every 18 months.
From community-based labs to advanced research centres, Fab Labs share the goal of democratising access to the tools for technical invention. This community is simultaneously a manufacturing network, a distributed technical education campus, and a distributed research laboratory working to digitise fabrication, inventing the next generation of manufacturing and personal fabrication, along with the next generation of thinkers and makers.
This has led to the development of the full stack model in order to grow and deploy the Fab City initiative. From the local to the global, Fab City works across multiple layers of practice and deployment, scaling the FabLab approach to a city and systems level.
Fab Cities
Barcelona – Zagreb – Thimphu – Shenzhen – Georgia – Curitiba – Occitanie Region – Puebla – Mexico City – Auvergne-Rhône – Alpes – Amsterdam – Cambridge – Kerala – Sacramento – Plymouth – Hamburg – Yucatàn Region – Valence Romans Agglo – Bas-Saint-Laurent – Belo-Horizonte – Ekurhuleni – Brest – Boston – Toulouse – Paris – Santiago – Velsen – Seoul – Oakland – Somerville – Detroit – Kamakura – Sorocaba – Rennes – São Paolo – Recife – Linz – Zadar
Fab City Plymouth
“In an increasingly polarised society and with climate change presenting an existential threat to our way of life, we need to act, and act now.”
At the 2019 Fab City Summit in Amsterdam, Plymouth became the first UK city to join the Fab City network.
Together, Plymouth College of Art, University of Plymouth, Real Ideas, Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Culture agree to commit efforts and resources in order to achieve the 2054 challenge for cities to produce all the energy, food and products they consume, and to deploy spiral economy strategies for the relocalisation of production, and the technological empowerment of citizens.